The invention relates to a container for transporting fresh water by sea, comprising a flexible covering for receiving fresh water and a pulling device which is joined to the covering and is made of a tubular retaining body which is used for coupling bridle lines.
The economic transport of large quantities of fresh water by sea is gaining importance in order to supply water-starved regions close to the coast with fresh water from regions close to the coast which have a surplus of water.
The sporadic supply of water to islands and zones close to the coast during dry periods by means of tank ships has been carried out for many years, although this manner of supply is expensive and is cumbersome in loading and unloading. For some time there have been efforts to reduce transport costs by using floating, flexible containers which are pulled by small tugboats. All containers known and used in practice have the shape of a torpedo or boat and therefore have a quasi point-like fastening of the traction cable at the bow. This arrangement leads to stress peaks about said fastening point and thus often to the destruction of the flexible container. Up until now it was only possible to overcome these problems by limiting the maximum size of the flexible containers, which in current practice are close to approx. 20,000 m3. A reduction in the transport costs can only be achieved by an increase in the size of the flexible containers by more than 10 times the current size. The loading and unloading occurred up until now through hoses and there are no special loading and unloading stations which have become known for handling such large quantities of water in an economical way.
A floating container is known from GB 933 889 A which comprises a flexible covering which is held at one end by a cylinder outside of the container. This may contribute to a certain extent to the distribution of mechanical forces. However, the filling and emptying of such a container is only possible via hoses or the like, as has been described above. A rapid loading and unloading of the containers in the loading and unloading stations is not possible in this way.